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Baltimore's John Harbaugh explains 'grinding the meat,' changing coordinators, and more

John Harbaugh

Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh yells directions during the AFC Championship game between the Baltimore Ravens and New England Patriots at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts on Sunday, January 20, 2013. (Photo by Michael DeMocker, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
(Photo by Michael DeMocker / The Times-Picayune and NOLA.com)

Baltimore Coach John Harbaugh explained how his background helped with his current success, why he changed coordinators, and more in his Thursday session with the media in advance of Super Bowl 2013.

On how being a special teams coach in Philadelphia prepared him for his current role as head coach: “Special teams is a great place to start as a coach. It’s a great place to be. I had an opportunity to work with every single player on the team. Players are different. Quarterbacks are different than defensive linemen. Defensive backs are different than offensive linemen. You do have an opportunity to work with all those different diverse groups every single day, working on football and meetings and all those different things, which is a great training ground for the job that I’m doing right now. So it’s been a big plus.”

On the decision to change the offensive coordinator: “You’re always trying to build. It goes back to that word. You’re trying to become as good as you can be. We had built something over the course of a long period of time and we were where we were and I think it became kind of obvious and apparent that we needed to shake things up a little bit and head down a little bit of a different road to get where we need to go. It’s not reflective of a job that anyone was or was not doing. Everyone was doing their best. Everybody was doing a great job. We just needed to change the chemistry and the dynamic and we did that and it worked out for us.”

On the expression ‘grind the meat and rattle the mollers’: “That’s Bo. That’s straight Jerry Hanlon, Bo Schembechler, Michigan, Midwest, Big 10, grey skies football. That goes back to the roots. When Michigan would be ahead Bo would get on the headphones with Jerry and say, ‘It’s time to grind some meat’. That means it’s time to run the ball, four-minute offense. They’d run an off tackle play. Rattle the molars, that’s coming off the ball. That’s trench warfare for football upfront. That’s football.”

On this being the final day of media availability for the players and whether there are any surprises planned for his press conference with Jim Harbaugh tomorrow: “You know they’ve done a great job with that. I think they’ve done a great job of compartmentalizing. I was worried I was going to mess that word up. They’ve done well with that. They’ve focused on the football. I’m proud of the way that they’ve handled the media as well. As far as the joint press conference tomorrow, we thought that we would switch uniforms. I would come dressed as Jim, and Jim would come dressed as me. We’ll see if you guys can figure it out.”

On his statement that the two best safety groups are playing in the Super Bowl: “I can’t say I’ve looked at all the safety groups and made a plot. But it would be hard for me to find two groups that are better than these two groups of guys playing together. To me the first and foremost thing is they’re very talented on both sides. I know Ed (Reed) gets some heat for tackling a little bit, but if you watch the way he’s tackling this year, you see the Ed Reed of old. He’s tackling very well. Bernard Pollard is obviously a very physical player. Both of their players are very physical players. They combine that with a great awareness of the backend. They play well together. How many teams do you see both safeties up or both safeties back, and they’re supposed to be working together? You really see that with these two groups.”

On his experience as a graduate assistant at Michigan: “Well like any young coach you think you know everything and you find out real quickly that you know nothing. As you grow as a coach and you kind of go down the road, you realize you know less than that. It was a great experience being with my dad every single day. Driving to work, driving home from work, kind of seeing the frustrations as a head coach. I was in charge of the cards and the computers and kind of doing all the things that young coaches do, you learn from the bottom up, just like Jim did when he went to Oakland. Having a chance to see my dad as the head coach and wanting so badly for him to be successful in that role, I saw some of the things that he struggled with and I think having that now in the memory banks has been a positive thing.”